


Catch a Falling Star

by ciely



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Crying, Feelings, Fluff, Fools in Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, lots of hugs, sad keith, sad shiro, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 17:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15539568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciely/pseuds/ciely
Summary: Shiro woke up in the middle of the night with a gasp. His dreams were a replay of memories that he partly wished were his and didn’t wish had ever happened but he could not change the events of the past. He scanned the room he was sleeping in and saw a figure across from him. Their chest rising gently. The outline of the body was definitely Keith although he had grown some. Shiro tried to sleep again but his mind was racing.  Before he had woken up he wasn’t asleep but rather stuck in a space in-between sleep and consciousness. Although the memories left him shaken, his heart hurt even more because he could hear Keith’s cries and they echoed hollowly in his chest.





	Catch a Falling Star

If there was one constant companion Keith had throughout his life, it was space. It was space that kept his childhood wishes. It was space that gave him as much hope as it took away from him.  
  
When Keith was a child he wondered, he wondered where the other half of his parentage was.  
His father would look longingly and heart achingly into space. And like most people, Keith took this to mean that his mother had passed away. Keith’s father died and space was the last thing left to him. Or it was, until one fateful day in the office he had become familiar with, and the same speech was given to him about wasted potential and last warnings, Keith met dark grey eyes that changed the course of his life.  
  
Kerberos happened and Keith looked into the heavens in the frigid desert amongst red dust with the same longing and heart ache his father once had. Keith grieved, and at points thought he had somehow lost his sanity in his grief, hearing whispers in the middle of the night. His wall became a crisscross of yarn as he tried to listen to what the presence was telling him.  
  
One day, when things seemed to be going nowhere, well he was literally going nowhere because his hover bike had decided not to cooperate with him and no matter how much he looked he couldn’t find the problem, he decided to stay in his shack. Boredom and angst mixed itself into a concoction that passed Keith’s lips and left him sloshed. “Thanks dad,” Keith drank what was left of his father’s malt whiskey. “Fuck,” Keith wasn’t much of a hard spirit type of guy. Honestly, he preferred a piña colada but you got to make do.  
  
It wasn’t until he stumbled into his room that he realized how much of a paranoid conspiracy theorist he had become. “God,” Keith felt an overwhelming sense of loss, of being ungrounded. He thought about the damn presence, he thought about the fucking Garrison, and he thought about...Shiro. “Shiro is never coming back,” he tried to convince himself. “He isn’t coming back,” Keith never learned how to cry without a mixture of anger. And suddenly he was tearing down the images on the walls, chaos intermixed with angry screams that eventually lulled into desperate breaths and whimpers. Keith’s back hit the walls and he slid down and made himself as small as he could. As if somehow he could contain all the hurt he felt and reel everything into the tiniest piece and swallow it within himself.  
  
But as quickly as he had fallen to pieces, Keith’s red rimmed eyes caught a glance of a smile amongst the maps and images. The same smile thought tripped up his heart. Keith scrambled and gripped onto the image holding it to his chest. ‘I can’t lose hope; I can’t leave Shiro behind,’ Keith rubbed away his tears with the back of his hand. And his eyes gleamed with ferocity, “I’ll find you Shiro.”  
  
***  
  
He found Shiro, he found Shiro after he had found him twice before. But this time he had to find out that when he wasn’t looking Shiro had died. He had died and an imposter had taken his place. Keith didn’t know what to feel but there was an overall sense of betrayal. A sense that he had betrayed Shiro and let him down. And a sense that his emotions, the intimacy that he had shared with the clone, with whom he had thought was Shiro, was used to manipulate him. Overall it left him unsettled. However, he was relieved, he was relieved as Shiro rested in his arms. He carefully carded his fingers through white hair.  
  
 A droplet of salt water landed on Shiro’s face, and another, and Keith fell apart once again. He buried himself in Shiro’s neck, but Shiro was none the wiser his body and soul tired. But the surrounding paladins looked away. This moment a lapse, an intimacy they were not given.  
  
Gently a warm hand on his shoulder brought him up and he looked upon his mother’s face. “Keith,” she gently tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, “it’s time to get going.” Keith only nodded. Krolia took Shiro from Keith’s arms, with a gentle resistance from Keith.  
  
Krolia laid Shiro down on a bunk within the Black Lion. Keith kept a step behind, but when it came time to cross the threshold into the resting quarters he didn’t go inside, rather he leaned in the doorway. His mom walked toward him with concern. “Keith, are you okay?” She beckoned with a soft voice. His voice was stuck, but when he finally said, “Y-yeah,” he shook his head and everything spilt from his lips. “He died, he died and someone who wasn’t him convinced me, me, that he was Shiro. And then he tried to kill me, but I didn’t want to let him go, even if I died I didn’t want to let him go. But to know that somewhere along the way I left Shiro behind, to know that he died and we all kept going while he was alone —mom being alone while people continue going along without you, it hurts, it hurts so much.”  
  
His mother wrapped her arms around him, saddened by her son’s pain. Pain that she was partly responsible for. Beside their feet, Yorak whined sensing their discomfort. They spent some time as she tried to lull him. Eventually the tiresome day left Keith sleeping. She laid him down gently on a bunk across from Shiro’s after removing his armor. They would set off to Terra after they rested. She beckoned Yorak to follow her out knowing that he was probably going to prance anxiously around the room.  
  
***

Shiro woke up in the middle of the night with a gasp. His dreams were a replay of memories that he partly wished were his and didn’t wish had ever happened but he could not change the events of the past. He scanned the room he was sleeping in and saw a figure across from him. Their chest rising gently. The outline of the body was definitely Keith although he had grown some. Shiro tried to sleep again but his mind was racing.  Before he had woken up he wasn’t asleep but rather stuck in a space in-between sleep and consciousness. Although the memories left him shaken, his heart hurt even more because he could hear Keith’s cries and they echoed hollowly in his chest.  
  
He slowly got up, he was slightly disoriented and his body felt foreign, but he made his way towards Keith. He just wanted check up on him. He looked beautiful, a work of art. He also looked older and he had a new scar on his cheek. ‘You gave him that scar and probably gave his heart more,’ his mind led him into thoughts that were unfriendly. His breathing was beginning to quicken. Keith’s eyes opened, violet only deep space could describe witnessed Shiro’s surprise and anguish. “Shiro?” Keith’s gravelly voice made even more rough with sleep latched onto Shiro’s ears. “Keith,” Shiro’s voice wavered.  
  
Keith’s hand found Shiro’s and held onto it. Silence pent up within the ticks of time.  
  
“Keith…”  
  
“Shiro…”  
  
They both paused waiting for the other to continue, and when neither did they continued.  
  
 “Shiro I’m…”  
  
“Sorry…” Shiro finished.  
  
They chuckled, their eyes gleaming with adoration. Their gravities like the ocean and the moon began to reach for one another bringing them closer. But unlike the moon and the sea, they were allowed to touch, they were allowed to touch one another. Their arms careful and grounding held onto each other, and they looked for the universe within their eyes.  
  
“Can I kiss you?” Keith’s voice was cautious.  
  
“Yes,” Shiro’s voice quivered.  
  
And their lips met, gentle. They separated and smiled.  
  
“I’d like to do that again,” Shiro asked.  
  
“Yeah,” Keith said somewhat euphoric.  
  
They met again more forcefully, an asteroid meeting the earth and the explosion was passion. Shiro’s tongue licked Keith’s lower lip. Keith groaned as Shiro took control, chest to chest. When things were beginning to spiral, were beginning to venture into something further Shiro pushed them apart slowly.  
  
“Keith,” Shiro said through a slightly embarrassed smile, “although this feels good, um, I don’t think we should be going any further.”  
  
Keith looked somewhat confused, but always open to understanding.  
  
“It’s just, a lot of stuff has happened and I don’t completely know myself and this body, and you probably don’t know me right now, well this body. Especially after I, he, went after you…” Shiro stopped when Keith hushed him.  
  
“I get it Shiro, I agree, we’ve been through some stuff we should probably work through before we cross any boundaries we shouldn’t cross.” Keith arms were still grasping onto Shiro’s biceps.  
  
Shiro noticed Keith’s eyes were swollen from crying. “I’m sorry about everything Keith, I’m sorry I left you alone.”  
  
“No, Shiro, if anyone should be sorry for leaving someone alone it should be me,” Keith gripped onto Shiro harder.  
  
“Keith, I got to ask, but what do you want from this, us. It’s just…I don’t want us to hurt one another, expecting things that we aren’t ready to give,” Shiro stumbled, remembering his last relationship.  
  
“Honestly, I never thought we could be together, you were going out with Adam and then the Kerberos mission, then we got involved in a galactic war but I do want to, um, I do want us to be together, romantically. I’ve probably been giving you mixed signals with the whole ‘brother’ stuff haven’t I,” Keith looked exasperated. “It’s just, I was afraid, I was afraid and I didn’t want to ruin anything between us. What I felt for you was more than friends, and I couldn’t label it romantic without having to... cross boundaries. And I know this might be stupid but I was also scared that I would be leading you on, I’ve never felt this way about someone before and I wasn’t sure about my— my attraction to you and what that means about me,” Keith finished catching his breath.  
  
“Oh Keith,” Shiro laughed, a pure lighthearted laugh.  
  
“Why are you laughing?” Keith pouted.  
  
“It just after all that we’ve been through, for Christ’s sake, I died and there was a clone, which is now me, a universal war, you being half-galra, my imprisonment, and we fly a Universe saving giant robot, a gay crisis is probably the most normal thing that we can experience,” Shiro was relieved, relieved by the normality of it.  
  
 “Of course, not to make little of your feelings. It just...I love you,” Shiro spoke as his smile remained on his face.  
  
Keith hid his blushing face in Shiro’s neck, “I- I love you, too. And just in case—” his eyes swept from Shiro’s eyes to his lips and he leaned in to give him a thorough kiss. “I hope this clarifies what kind of love I feel for you.”  
  
Shiro sighed, “Y—yeah it does. Umm, we should probably go to sleep, yeah.” Shiro said as his fingers caressed Keith’s cheek.  
  
“That sounds like a good plan,” Keith yawned.  
  
Shiro untwined himself from Keith to get back to his bunk when Keith caught onto his hand, “Shiro, could you sleep with me tonight, if that’s okay with you?”  
  
“Yeah, let me take just take off my armor,” Shiro went to his bunk and set his armor down.  
  
When he came back Keith was under the blanket his eyes closed, his breaths gentle but he wasn’t asleep yet. Shiro slid into the bunk, he laid on his side facing Keith’s back. Slowly Shiro wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist, nosing his way to Keith’s neck. Suddenly Shiro felt everything crash breaking into slivers, he cried as he held onto Keith. He cried, Keith held the hand around his stomach. He teared up too. But in each other’s embrace they were able to keep themselves in the now, while the grieved for the then.  
  
***

Krolia found them together in the bunk. Keith woke up to the sound of her entering, she must have slept in the cockpit. She raised an eyebrow to the situation she had walked in on. “We’ll talk later,” Keith unwrapped Shiro from his form and began to put on his armor. “It’s about time we set course to Earth.”  
  
Shiro woke up much later, his soul still trying to tune itself to its new body. When he finally woke up he put his armor on and headed to the cockpit. There he found Krolia and Keith, beside him was Yorak watching through the window with Keith as they flew.  
  
“Hello,” he greeted Krolia. And then he looked at Keith, their gaze lingered as they searched for stars within each other’s eyes.  
  
 “Hey,” Keith let out in a whisper.  
  
“Hey,” Shiro responded with the same breathlessness.  
  
Krolia rolled her eyes, ‘Buffoons.’ She thought as she smiled.  
  
With their course set to Earth, Keith made his way back with what he had thought he had lost, but with faith and devotion, he had kept at his side. He would protect Shiro and find him as many times as it took. And Shiro would stay at Keith’s side companions through space and time.  
  
Patience, in their case, having yielded love.  
  



End file.
